Jewish American Heritage Month

Posted By admin on June 16, 2021

Minks in a cage at a mink farm in Pushkino, Russia, more than 20 miles from Moscow. Yuri Tutov/AFP via Getty Images hide caption

Minks in a cage at a mink farm in Pushkino, Russia, more than 20 miles from Moscow.

The Israeli government has banned the sale of fur in the fashion industry, becoming the first country to outlaw the controversial clothing material that opponents say leads to the slaughter of millions of animals each year.

Gila Gamliel, now the former minister of environmental protection following her party's defeat Sunday in the Israeli Knesset, called the fur trade for the fashion industry "immoral and unnecessary" when she signed the ban last week.

"Together, we will make the Israeli fashion market more environmentally friendly and do kindness to animals!" Gamliel tweeted.

Israel's ban on the sale of fur will take effect in six months.

Yet it's unclear just how far the ban will go toward preventing fur from coming onto the market in Israel, given that the country's warm climate can make wearing fur impractical. An exemption to the ban will also allow sales to continue for ultra-Orthodox Jewish men, many of whom wear fur head coverings as a matter of their faith.

Israel's fur ban includes several carve-outs, including one for educational reasons and another that permits residents to buy skins and pelts for religious purposes.

That means that married, ultra-Orthodox Jewish men will still be able to buy rounded fur hats known as shtreimels. (The vast majority of ultra-Orthodox Jewish men wear head coverings, the Pew Research Center found.)

A shtreimel is typically made of the fur from the tails of the Canadian or Russian sable, the stone marten, the baum marten or the American gray fox, according to the Jewish Virtual Library.

Although some shtreimels are now made with fake fur, critics say the religious exemption makes the fur ban less powerful than it could have been.

"If anything Gamliel's decision created additional moral escape-hatches: She could have eschewed the exemption and the outliers, too, could have been persuaded to adopt fake fur," journalist Avshalom Halutz wrote in Haaretz last year after the ban was proposed.

Still, critics of the global fur industry applauded Israel's prohibition on fur sales, which the animal rights organization People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals called a "historic victory."

It was the latest development in an ongoing effort by animal rights activists to put an end to a practice they say causes cruelty to animals for no reason other than to manufacture clothing and fashion accessories, and the industry is responding.

The United Kingdom banned fur farming in the early 2000s, and other European countries including the Netherlands, Belgium and the Czech Republic have also taken steps to end the practice, according to Humane Society International.

In 2019, California became the first U.S. state to enact a law banning the sale of fur products, which takes effect in 2023.

A number of fashion retailers such as Nordstrom, as well as high-profile brands including Prada and Versace, have also said they would stop selling fur in response to reports of cruelty in the fur trade.

About 100 million animals are bred and killed each year to supply fur to the fashion sector, Humane Society International estimates.

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Posted By admin on June 16, 2021

Shoah is a 1985 French documentary film about the Holocaust (known as "Shoah" in Hebrew[a]), directed by Claude Lanzmann.[5] Over nine hours long and 11 years in the making, the film presents Lanzmann's interviews with survivors, witnesses and perpetrators during visits to German Holocaust sites across Poland, including extermination camps.[6]

Released in Paris in April 1985, Shoah won critical acclaim and several prominent awards, including the New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Non-Fiction Film and the BAFTA Award for Best Documentary. Simone de Beauvoir hailed it as a "sheer masterpiece", while documentary maker Marcel Ophls (who would later win an Academy Award for Htel Terminus: The Life and Times of Klaus Barbie three year later) called it "the greatest documentary about contemporary history ever made".[7] The film was not well received in Poland; the Polish government argued that it accused Poland of "complicity in Nazi genocide".[8]

Shoah premiered in New York at the Cinema Studio in October 1985[9] and was broadcast in the United States by PBS over four nights in 1987.

The film is concerned chiefly with four topics: the Chemno extermination camp, where mobile gas vans were first used by Germans to exterminate Jews; the death camps of Treblinka and Auschwitz-Birkenau; and the Warsaw ghetto, with testimonies from survivors, witnesses and perpetrators.

The sections on Treblinka include testimony from Abraham Bomba, who survived as a barber;[10] Richard Glazar, an inmate; and Franz Suchomel, an SS officer. Bomba breaks down while describing how a barber friend of his came across his wife and sister while cutting hair in an anteroom of the gas chamber. This section includes Henryk Gawkowski, who drove transport trains while intoxicated with vodka. Gawkowski's photograph appears on the poster used for the film's marketing campaign.

Testimonies on Auschwitz are provided by Rudolf Vrba, who escaped from the camp before the end of the war;[11] and Filip Mller, who worked in an incinerator burning the bodies from the gassings. Mller recounts what prisoners said to him, and describes the experience of personally going into the gas chamber: bodies were piled up by the doors "like stones". He breaks down as he recalls the prisoners starting to sing while being forced into the gas chamber. Accounts include some from local villagers, who witnessed trains heading daily to the camp and returning empty; they quickly guessed the fate of those on board.

Lanzmann also interviews bystanders. He asks whether they knew what was going on in the death camps. Their answers reveal that they did, but they justified their inaction by their fear of death. Two survivors of Chemno are interviewed: Simon Srebnik, who was forced to sing military songs to entertain the Nazis; and Mordecha Podchlebnik. Lanzmann also has a secretly filmed interview with Franz Schalling, a German security guard, who describes the workings of Chemno. Walter Stier, a former Nazi bureaucrat, describes the workings of the railways. Stier insists he was too busy managing railroad traffic to notice his trains were transporting Jews to their deaths.

The Warsaw ghetto is described by Jan Karski, a member of the Polish Underground who worked for the Polish government-in-exile, and Franz Grassler, a Nazi administrator in Warsaw who liaised with Jewish leaders. A Christian, Karski sneaked into the Warsaw ghetto and travelled using false documents to England to try to convince the Allied governments to intervene more strongly on behalf of the Jews.[12]

Memories from Jewish survivors of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising conclude the documentary. Lanzmann also interviews Holocaust historian Raul Hilberg, who discusses the significance of Nazi propaganda against the European Jews and the Nazi development of the Final Solution and a detailed analysis of railroad documents showing the transport routes to the death camps. The complete text of the film was published in 1985.

Corporal Franz Suchomel, interviewed by Lanzmann in Germany on 27 April 1976, was an SS officer who had worked at Treblinka.[13] Suchomel agreed to be interviewed for DM 500, but he refused to be filmed, so Lanzmann used hidden recording equipment while assuring Suchomel that he would not use his name. Documentary maker Marcel Ophls wrote: "I can hardly find the words to express how much I approve of this procedure, how much I sympathize with it."[14]

Suchomel talks in detail about the camp's gas chambers and the disposal of bodies. He states that he did not know about the extermination at Treblinka until he arrived there. On his first day he says he vomited and cried after encountering trenches full of corpses, 67 m deep, with the earth around them moving in waves because of the gases. The smell of the bodies carried for kilometres depending on the wind, he said, but local people were scared to act in case they were sent to the work camp, Treblinka 1.[15]:p.78

He explained that from arrival at Treblinka to death in the gas chambers took 23 hours for a trainload of people. They would undress, the women would have their hair cut, then they would wait naked outside, including during the winter in minus 1020C, until there was room in the gas chamber. Suchomel told Lanzmann that he would ask the hairdressers to slow down so that the women would not have to wait so long outside.[15]:p.1920

Compared to the size and complexity of Auschwitz, Suchomel calls Treblinka "primitive. But a well-functioning assembly line of death."[15]:p.16

The publicity poster for the film features Henryk Gawkowski, a Polish train worker from Malkinia, who, in 19421943 when he was 2021 years old,[16] worked on the trains to Treblinka as an "assistant machinist with the right to drive the locomotive".[17] Conducted in Poland in July 1978, the interview with Gawkowski is shown 48 minutes into the film, and is the first to present events from the victims' perspective. Lanzmann hired a steam locomotive similar to the one Gawkowski worked on, and shows the tracks and a sign for Treblinka.[18]

Gawkowski told Lanzmann that every train had a Polish driver and assistant, accompanied by German officers.[19] What happened was not his fault, he said; had he refused to do the job, he would have been sent to a work camp. He would have killed Hitler himself had he been able to, he told Lanzmann.[20] Lanzmann estimated that 18,000 Jews were taken to Treblinka by the trains Gawkowski worked on.[19] Gawkowski said he had driven Polish Jews there in cargo trains in 1942, and Jews from France, Greece, Holland and Yugoslavia in passenger trains in 1943. A train carrying Jews was called a Sonderzug (special train); the "cargo" was given false papers to disguise that humans were being hauled.[21] The Germans gave the train workers vodka as a bonus when they drove a Sonderzug; Gawkowski drank liberally to make the job bearable.[22]

Gawkowski drove trains to the Treblinka train station and from the station into the camp itself.[21] He said the smell of burning was unbearable as the train approached the camp.[23] The railcars would be driven into the camp by the locomotive in three stages; as he drove one convoy into Treblinka, he would signal to the ones that were waiting by making a slashing movement across his throat. The gesture would cause chaos in those convoys, he said; passengers would try to jump out or throw their children out.[24] Dominick LaCapra wrote that the expression on Gawkowski's face when he demonstrated the gesture for Lanzmann seemed "somewhat diabolical".[25] Lanzmann grew to like Gawkowski over the course of the interviews, writing in 1990: "He was different from the others. I have sympathy for him because he carries a truly open wound that does not heal."[26]

Lanzmann was commissioned by Israeli officials to make what they thought would be a two-hour film, delivered in 18 months, about the Holocaust from "the viewpoint of the Jews".[27][28] As time went on, Israeli officials withdrew as his original backers.[27] Over 350 hours of raw footage were recorded, including the verbatim questions, answers, and interpreters' translations. Shoah took eleven years to make.[29] It was plagued by financial problems, difficulties tracking down interviewees, and threats to Lanzmann's life. The film was unusual in that it did not include any historical footage,[30] relying instead on interviewing witnesses and visiting the crime scenes.[9] Five feature-length films have since been released from the outtakes.

Some German interviewees were reluctant to talk and refused to be filmed, so Lanzmann used a hidden camera, producing a grainy, black-and-white appearance.[9] The interviewees in these scenes are sometimes obscured or distinguished by technicians watching the recording. During one interview, with Heinz Schubert, the covert recording was discovered by Schubert's family, and Lanzmann was physically attacked. He was hospitalized for a month and charged by the authorities with "unauthorized use of the German airwaves".[28]

Lanzmann arranged many of the scenes, but not the testimony, before filming witnesses. For example, Bomba was interviewed while cutting his friend's hair in a working barbershop; a steam locomotive was hired to recreate the journey the death train conductor had taken while transporting Jews; and the opening scene shows Srebnik singing in a rowboat, similarly to how he had "serenaded his captors".[28]

The first six years of production were devoted to the recording of interviews in 14 different countries.[29] Lanzmann worked on the interviews for four years before first visiting Poland. After the shooting, editing of the 350 hours of raw footage continued for five years.[29] Lanzmann frequently replaced the camera shot of the interviewee with modern footage from the site of the relevant death camp. The matching of testimony to places became a "crucial trope of the film".[28]

Shoah was made without voice-over translations. The questions and answers were kept on the soundtrack, along with the voices of the interpreters,[28] with subtitles where necessary. Transcripts of the interviews, in original languages and English translations, are held by the US Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC. Videos of excerpts from the interviews are available for viewing online, and linked transcripts can be downloaded from the museum's website.[31]

The film received numerous nominations and awards at film festivals around the world. Prominent awards included the New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Non-Fiction Film in 1985,[7] a special citation at the 1985 Los Angeles Film Critics Association Awards, and the BAFTA Award for Best Documentary in 1986. That year it also won the National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Non-Fiction Film and Best Documentary at the International Documentary Association.

Hailed as a masterpiece by many critics, Shoah was described in The New York Times as "an epic film about the greatest evil of modern times".[9] According to Richard Brody, Franois Mitterrand attended the first screening in Paris in April 1985 when he was president of France, Vclav Havel watched it in prison, and Mikhail Gorbachev arranged public screenings in the Soviet Union in 1989.[28]

In 1985, critic Roger Ebert described it as "an extraordinary film" and "one of the noblest films ever made".[32] He wrote: "It is not a documentary, not journalism, not propaganda, not political. It is an act of witness."[33] Rotten Tomatoes shows a 100% score, based on 34 reviews, with an average rating of 9.25/10. The website's critical consensus states: "Expansive in its beauty as well as its mind-numbing horror, Shoah is a towering and utterly singular achievement in cinema."[34] Metacritic reports a 99 out of 100 rating, based on four critics, indicating "universal acclaim".[35] As of July 2019, it is the site's 21st highest-rated film, including re-releases.[36]

Time Out and The Guardian listed Shoah as the best documentary of all time in 2016 and 2013 respectively.[37] In a 2014 British Film Institute (BFI) Sight and Sound poll, film critics voted it second of the best documentary films of all time.[38] In 2012 it ranked 29th and 48th respectively in the BFI's critics' and directors' polls of the greatest films of all time.[39]

The film had detractors, however, and it was criticized in Poland.[40] Mieczyslaw Biskupski wrote that Lanzmann's "purpose in making the film was revealed by his comments that he 'fears' Poland and that the death camps could not have been constructed in France because the 'French peasantry would not have tolerated them'".[41] Government-run newspapers and state television criticized the film, as did numerous commentators; Jerzy Turowicz, editor of the Catholic weekly Tygodnik Powszechny, called it partial and tendentious.[42] The Socio-Cultural Association of Jews in Poland (Towarzystwo Spoeczno-Kulturalne ydw w Polsce) called it a provocation and delivered a protest letter to the French embassy in Warsaw.[43] Foreign Minister Wadysaw Bartoszewski, an Auschwitz survivor and an honorary citizen of Israel, criticized Lanzmann for ignoring the thousands of Polish rescuers of Jews, focusing instead on impoverished rural Poles, selected to conform with his preconceived notions.

Gustaw Herling-Grudziski, a Polish writer (with Jewish roots) and dissident, was puzzled by Lanzmann's omission of anybody in Poland with advanced knowledge of the Holocaust.[44] In his book Dziennik pisany noc, Herling-Grudziski wrote that the thematic construction of Shoah allowed Lanzmann to exercise a reduction method so extreme that the plight of the non-Jewish Poles must remain a mystery to the viewer. Grudziski asked a rhetorical question in his book: "Did the Poles live in peace, quietly plowing farmers' fields with their backs turned on the long fuming chimneys of death-camp crematoria? Or, were they exterminated along with the Jews as subhuman?" According to Grudziski, Lanzmann leaves this question unanswered, but the historical evidence shows that Poles also suffered widespread massacres at the hands of the Nazis.[44]

The American film critic Pauline Kael, whose parents were Jewish immigrants to the U.S. from Poland,[45] called the film "a form of self-punishment", describing it in The New Yorker in 1985 as "logy and exhausting right from the start..." "Lanzmann did all the questioning himself," she wrote, "while putting pressure on people in a discursive manner, which gave the film a deadening weight."[46] Writing in The New Yorker in 2010, Richard Brody suggested that Kael's "misunderstandings of Shoah are so grotesque as to seem willful."[47]

In 2000, it was released on VHS and in 2010 on DVD.[48] Lanzmann's 350 hours of raw footage, along with the transcripts, are available on the website of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.[31][49] The entire 566-minute film was digitally restored and remastered by The Criterion Collection over 201213 in 2K resolution, from the original 16 mm negatives. The monaural audio track was remastered without compression. A Blu-ray edition in three disks was then produced from these new masters, including three additional films by Lanzmann.

Lanzmann released four feature-length films based on unused material shot for Shoah. The first three are included as bonus features in the Criterion Collection DVD and Blu-ray release of the film. All four are included in the Masters of Cinema Blu-ray release of the film.

Previously unseen Shoah outtakes have been featured in Adam Benzine's Oscar-nominated HBO documentary Claude Lanzmann: Spectres of the Shoah (2015), which examines Lanzmann's life from 1973 to 1985, the years he spent making Shoah.[51][52]

Ziva Postec's work as the film's editor was profiled in the 2018 documentary film Ziva Postec: The Editor Behind the Film Shoah (Ziva Postec: La monteuse derrire le film Shoah), by Canadian documentarian Catherine Hbert.[53]

Also see Claude Lanzmann with Marc Chevrie and Herv le Roux, "Site and Speech: An Interview with Claude Lanzmann about Shoah", in Kahana (ed.) 2016, 784793.

Also see Jan Karski, Story of a Secret State: My Report to the World, Georgetown University Press, 2014 [1944].

Also see "Claude Lanzmann Shoah Collection: Henryk Gawkowski and Treblinka railway workers", Washington, D.C.: Steven Spielberg Film and Video Archive, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

"Top 10 Documentaries". The Guardian. 12 November 2013. Retrieved 7 February 2016.

Nick James (21 December 2015). "Critics' 50 Greatest Documentaries of All Time". British Film Institute. Retrieved 29 January 2016.

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Posted By admin on June 16, 2021

The horrors of the mid-20th century destruction of European Judaism are indescribable, yet there are many words to describe it.

In English, those terrible events are referred to by the word "Holocaust." The term became commonplace after 1978, when a miniseries by the same name aired on American television, bringing the carnage right into U.S. living rooms.

Before the term Holocaust was used specifically to describe the organized killing of Jews, however, it was used by writers to describe other more moderate, but still horrific, bloodbaths.

The origins of the word Holocaust come from the Greek holos and kostos, which combined mean "totally burnt." At its core, the term describes an animal sacrifice totally burnt on an altar in order to please a god.

In Hebrew, we use a different word, which is also ancient: shoah (sho-Ah). The word appears in the Bible more than a dozen times, always to signify complete and utter destruction.

For example, consider Zephaniah 1:15: That day is a day of wrath, a day of trouble and distress, a day of shoah and desolation, a day of darkness and gloominess, a day of clouds and thick darkness.

During the Middle Ages, the word began to mean disaster. Samuel ibn Naghrela, the great Talmudic scholar and statesman who lived in Moorish Iberia in the 11th century, wrote this poem: Angered by difficultyAnd angered by want of sinAnd there is shoah hidden in goodAnd good hidden in shoah."

In Israel, the word appeared in 1865 in HaLevanon, the first Hebrew newspaper in the Holy Land. When Rabbi Joseph Schwarz died that year, the newspaper ran an article which said, "A shoah piled on a shoah covered Jerusalem."

The first person believed to use the word shoah specifically to describe the Holocaust was writer and editor Yehuda Erez, in 1938. Erez, who emigrated from Russia to British Mandate Palestine 1923, wrote the article "With the Shoah in Europe" in December 1938, saying, We are horrified at the foundation by the shoah that is taking place upon the heads of German Jewry."

Even before World War II broke out, ultra-Orthodox publications began calling the events befalling Germanys Jews a shoah. The term also appeared here and there in secular periodicals. Once the Nazis invaded Poland and the war truly erupted, the word shoah began to spread to the daily newspapers.

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Haaretz first used the word shoah in its modern sense in September 1939, when one of its writers said, When the sword of war placed a shoah on entire Jewish towns and brought anxiousness and discomfort to the Jewish community in the Holy Land."

Haaretz's competitor Davar, however (since defunct), had beaten it to the punch two days earlier, writing in its editorial of the unfolding events in Europe: A terrible shoah befell the millions of Jews of Poland, a shoah whose scope and sights far exceed anything experienced in recent years."

During the 1940s, when the extent of the tragedy became clear, the term shoah was designated as the term to describe the horror. This didnt please everyone; the poet Uri Zvi Grinberg, for example, devoted his Bialik Prize acceptance speech in 1955 to rail against the use of the term.

In subsequent years, the word shoah has been applied to other genocides, as well, including that of the Armenians by the Turks in World War I such as the genocide of the Armenians by the Turks during World War I, and in Hebrew translations of English terms such as nuclear holocaust and ecological holocaust.

And every year in Israel, the annual Holocaust memorial day is called Yom HaShoah.

This article was first published in April of 2013

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Shoah: How a biblical term became the Hebrew word for ...

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Now open at Kansas City's Union Station is a huge, new, historical exhibition. The exhibition is fronted by one of the freight cars that once transported hundreds of thousands of souls to the Auschwitz death camp in southeastern Poland between 1940 and 1945.

"Auschwitz. Not Long Ago. Not Far Away." recalls the horror that was the NAZI terror and which forced the rest of the civilized world to rise up and end Adolph Hitler, his acolytes, and The Third German Reich. Seventy-five million people died as a result of World War II. Eleven million people, inclusive of some six million European Jews, were exterminated at the hands of the NAZIs in what became known as the Holocaust.

Auschwitz is personal to me. The Best Man at my wedding, a Chicago policeman, was the son of an Auschwitz survivor. I vividly remember the blue numbered tattoo on the inside of his Mom's forearm. I have read thousands upon thousands of pages about the war and the camps. Most notably and recently, the incredible fictionalized account of the Henry family by the unsurpassed Herman Wouk and Erik Larsen's nonfiction telling of the experiences of American Ambassador William Dodd and family in Germany from 1933 to 1937. Among the most vivid accounts is Stephen Spielberg's 1993 masterpiece "Schindler's List" and the Shoah Foundation that Spielberg financed to allow Holocaust Survivors a tool with which to memorialize their nightmare forever. And I recommend this exhibit.

I am the son, son-in-law, and nephew to veterans who stood witness to the horror. My Uncle never fully recovered. A boyhood neighbor was an official US Army photographer at the 1945 Nuremberg War Crime Trials. He had retained copies of the original photographic trial evidence.

My Dad's people emigrated from what was then Austria (and is now Poland near Auschwitz) in 1885 to St. Louis. It is impossible to know for sure, but their migration most probably had to do with a schism between branches of the religion they practiced. My Mom's people came from Ukraine and Moldova as the result of a 1906 pogrom that alleged Jews had killed a Christian boy so that his blood could be used to manufacture Matzo.

One million, one hundred thousand people died at Auschwitz-Birkenau during its four years of operation. Most were Jews, but many were homosexuals, members of the Roma minority, Slavs, Poles, or political dissidents. The fear of "the other among us" explains much of what happened.

How could such a thing have ever happened? Surely, it must be a conspiracy theory. It is not.

How could a culture that gave us Guttenberg, Bach, Mozart, Schweitzer, Einstein, Freud, and Mahler have committed the unspeakable? They did.

And this is really the point about why good Midwestern people from the heartland of America need to see "Auschwitz. Not Long Ago. Not Far Away." Germany was and is an advanced, marvelous country populated by incredibly intelligent and productive people. Many Midwestern ancestors came to America from Germany searching for a better life. These people were not monsters, they are us.

Jews and other minorities have been persecuted for hundreds of years to one level or another. The Spanish Inquisition during the late 1300s required Jews to convert to Catholicism or die. It is estimated two thousand were burned at the stake. A century earlier all Jews were expelled from England and remained excluded until 1657.

In all these cases and many more, autocrats manipulated their publics to believe that the difficulties of life came from the successes of a minority. Germany, following World War I, was an economic basket case. The Versailles Treaty took unreasonable vengeance on the losers. The National Socialist Party (the NAZIs) took advantage of the suffering German people and came to power with only thirty-seven percent of the vote. President Paul Von Hindenburg was persuaded to appoint the spellbinding NAZI orator Adolph Hitler as Chancellor in 1932. Hindenburg died shortly thereafter and Hitler acceded to primacy.

Hitler made economic promises that could never come true and invented a racial archetype that a battered population wanted desperately to believe. Hitler's real plan was robbery writ large on a scale never before imagined. He would achieve his promises through murder of the unpopular of society, taking their goods, and stealing the resources (living space) from the surrounding countryside.

"Auschwitz. Not Long Ago. Not Far Away." The exhibit retells this horrible chapter in human experience. Auschwitz was a combination slave labor and extermination camp. Hundreds of thousands were shipped to the camp in freight cars like the one that now sits outside Union Station on Pershing Avenue. Those deemed unable to work were summarily executed in gas chambers disguised as shower rooms, their belongings were catalogued, shipped to support the German war effort, before the bodies were burned in industrial crematoriums.

Among the artifacts displayed is the bird cage device filled with the deadly insecticide Zyklon B. The cage was lowered time after time into the gas chambers/disguised shower rooms, the sealed door looms to one of the chambers, and the examination table used by Dr. Joseph Mengele for his fiendish "twins" experiments echoes with the screams of its patients.

"Auschwitz. Not Long Ago. Not Far Away." Is the work product of a non- Jewish, Spanish museum exhibition company. It was first proposed to the Union Station Staff in 2015 at an industry gathering in Atlanta. The exhibition was conceived by Muselalia of Spain, the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum led by Dr. Piotr Setkiewicz in Poland with the cooperation of Dutch Historian Dr. Robert Jan van Pelt, former Shoah Foundation President Dr. Michael Berenbaum, and chief curator Paul Salmons. Kansas City is the third and final stop for the exhibition after extended residencies in Madrid and New York.

"Auschwitz. Not Long Ago. Not Far Away." memorializes those who died there and raises up the always recognizable, screeching, alternating, European police sirens of the period. We are silently warned to be alert to the echoes of those sounds and of who can be convinced to blame their fears, failures, and shortcomings in life on minority communities; like Jews, Asians, Latinos, Indians, African-Americans, or followers of Islamic faiths. Many have been taken by the dishonest, siren railings of former or potential autocrats in positions of power to stoke fears, make up outrageous lies, or otherwise convince perfectly rational people that they need to be afraid and that they need to take action. These autocratic villains exist in Europe, Asia, Africa, South America, The Middle East, and even here in America.

As of midnight on opening day, June 14, 2021, 81,000 tickets have been sold for "Auschwitz. Not Long Ago. Not Far Away;" the exhibit. Admission may not now be available until late summer or early fall. Plans are in place for the exhibition to continue until mid-January 2022. It is an object lesson that might save us.

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Posted By admin on June 16, 2021

The recent violent conflict in Israel and Gaza has resulted in a dramatic increase in antisemitic acts in the United States. In some cities, Jewish individuals have been assaulted and seriously injured; others have been subjected to insults in person or on social media.

In a communication to the Detroit area Jewish community last week, Federations leadership stated, An alarming statistic was shared recently by the Secure Community Network, the official safety and security organization of the Jewish community in North America: Over the past month, in the wake of Israels 11-day conflict with Hamas, antisemitic acts in the U.S. soared by 80%.

Carolyn Normandin, regional director of Michigan ADL (Anti-Defamation League) reported that that within days of the start of armed hostilities between Israel and Hamas, 17,000 tweets were posted saying that Hitler was right.

While there have been no major incidents or assaults in Michigan, insults have been yelled from cars at Jewish people and there has been online targeting, minor vandalism and passage of anti-Israel resolutions by three local student government bodies, according to Federation. Normandin said that about 30 antisemitic local incidents have been reported to her office during the past three weeks, including two threats of violence.

We are always concerned, always watching. We are continuing to monitor and have made some security changes, said Steven Ingber, CEO of Jewish Federation. In addition, he reported that Federation staff members are working with Hillel campus organizations and have met with the Michigan Board of Rabbis.

He cited strong relationships between the Jewish and other communities in this area, including the interfaith community, and local and federal law enforcement. We are trying to create spaces for open dialogues. We cant outshout them, Ingber said.

Ted Cohen, Federations chief of marketing, added that We are promoting more accurate and positive narratives about Israel and working with the JCRC/AJC.

Gary Sikorski, director of community-wide security for Jewish Federation, said We maintain a high level of vigilance and try to be proactive, not reactive.

Federation has expanded its Community Security program in recent years with trained, experienced officers stationed at Jewish day schools, agencies, camps and campuses throughout the community. Support is also provided to Jewish congregations and other institutions across the community to instill a culture of vigilance and safety, according to Federations statement.

Ingber pointed out that student governments at Michigan State University, University of Michigan and Wayne State University have passed anti-Israel resolutions with inflammatory rhetoric. Anti-Israel and anti-Jewish language can overlap. We want to keep campuses safe for Jewish students, he stated.

Normandin said that some Jewish college students now find the campus atmosphere uncomfortable; one faculty member no longer wants to wear a Star of David. She is concerned about two Jewish business owners whose businesses have been attacked online for pro-Israel statements. How does attacking them help promote peace in Israel? she asked.

Free speech regulations protect comments that may be derogatory but are not illegal because they do not incite violence. There are a lot of watchdogs reporting on antisemitic posts on Facebook and other social media, Sikorski said.

Despite the current negative climate, Ingber stressed the importance of continuing to live Jewishly, not to refrain from Jewish celebrations. The recent Federation leadership message concludes with comments from Rabbi Jeffrey Myers of Pittsburghs Tree of Life Synagogue, the site of the killing of 11 worshippers in 2018. The answer is not to do less, and to hide. Its to be proud of who you are, and to do more of what you are that makes you Jewish So, when they do more evil, I do more Jewish.

In Federations recent communication, community members were urged to Immediately report suspicious behavior to local law enforcement, including posts on social media and concerns about guns, threats or other alarming activities.

For immediate security concerns related to Jewish schools, congregations and agencies, contact the Jewish Federation Community-Wide Security Team at (248) 833-2521 or email security@jfmd.org. Anyone in immediate danger should contact 911 or their local law enforcement entity.

To report incidents of antisemitism, bias and discrimination through the Anti-Defamation League, (ADL), visit http://www.adl.org/reportincident or call (248) 353-7553.

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Jewish Federation Expands Outreach and Education to Counter Increased Antisemitism Detroit Jewish News - The Jewish News

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Posted By admin on June 16, 2021

After 12 years, Israel finally has a new prime minister in Naftali Bennett. Next month, it will also get a new president when Isaac Herzog replaces Reuven Rivlin. Herzogs election victory has created another high-profile position in Israel that now needs filling: head of the Jewish Agency.

Granted, it doesnt hold the power of the prime ministers office. Neither does it carry the symbolism or stature of the presidents office. In fact, many would argue that the Agency, which was formed to serve as the governing body of the Jewish community in British Mandatory Palestine before there was a state, has lost its raison dtre.

Still, that doesnt mean there is any lack of candidates vying for what is still perceived as one of the most prestigious jobs in the Jewish organizational world.

Herzog is scheduled to take over as president on July 9. But as things stand, his replacement at the Agency will probably not even be picked by then and an acting chairperson will have to be installed for the meantime.

The names of about half a dozen candidates have been tossed around in recent weeks, with two seen as front-runners: Elazar Stern, a lawmaker from the centrist Yesh Atid party (the largest faction in the new governing coalition), and Dani Dayan, Israels former consul general in New York.

Stern, a former head of the manpower directorate in the Israel Defense Forces and before that chief of the armys education and youth corps, has already won the endorsement of both Prime Minister Bennett and Alternate Prime Minister Yair Lapid.

That is obviously important, but not enough to secure him the post.

Veto power

The selection committee that chooses the Agencys chairperson headed by World Zionist Organization Chairman Yaakov Hagoel is comprised of 10 members. According to Agency bylaws, the candidate must be approved by nine of the 10, meaning it is enough for two members to oppose a specific candidate for that person to be vetoed.

Until the last selection round, the committee had largely served as a rubber stamp, approving whichever candidate had the backing of the current prime minister.

That was not the case in 2018, however, after Natan Sharansky stepped down. Then-Premier Benjamin Netanyahu was opposed to replacing Sharansky with Herzog, the former Labor Party leader, and asked the committee to support instead his own nominee, Yuval Steinitz, a cabinet minister from Likud. In an unusual act of defiance, the committee rejected Netanyahus request and approved Herzog.

Given that precedent, Stern, 64, understands that he is not a shoo-in.

Although he wears a knitted kippa and identifies as a religious Zionist, Stern is more progressive than most Modern Orthodox Israelis, both on matters of religion and politics. Perhaps the best proof is that he chose to join a party that champions liberalism and secularism rather than a religious party.

Stern, who supports a two-state solution, lives in the religious community of Hoshaya, northern Israel. During his extended army career, he was perhaps best-known for a conversion program he created and headed for soldiers not considered halakhically Jewish. It was meant to provide them with a friendlier alternative to the rigidly Orthodox conversion program overseen by the Chief Rabbinates office.

Since joining the Knesset in 2013, he has been an outspoken critic of the Rabbinate, an advocate of conversion reforms (though he would not go so far as to recognize Reform and Conservative conversions) and is an outspoken supporter of the Kotel deal. This was meant to create a new and enhanced space for egalitarian prayer at the Western Wall, but was suspended in 2017 under pressure from the ultra-Orthodox parties.

On more than one occasion, in meetings with Jewish leaders from abroad, Stern has even urged them to boycott the Israeli government until it fulfills its promises for religious reforms.

But Stern has not distinguished himself as a progressive on all issues: As chief education officer of the army 20 years ago, he shuttered the official IDF magazine for two weeks after it published a cover story on a reserve officer who came out of the closet. Stern later denied he had anything against the LGBT community, insisting that he merely objected to the timing of the articles publication (on the eve of Memorial Day).

Stern got himself in trouble again a few years ago when he appeared to suggest during a heated Knesset debate that then-Likud minister Miri Regev, who had formerly served as chief army spokeswoman, received her military promotions in exchange for sexual favors.

The Agency is often required to serve as a mediator between the Israeli government and Diaspora Jewry during times of crisis. Sterns confrontational style, sources familiar with the selection process noted, might not be well-suited for a job that requires such diplomatic finesse.

When asked for his response, Stern told Haaretz: Breaking through boundaries often requires friction.

His lack of fluency in English, the sources added, could also prove a liability in a job that requires a high level of interaction with non-Hebrew speakers.

Stern was sworn in as intelligence minister in the new government on Sunday. Since the intelligence minister in Israel does not have control of the secret services or the army intelligence unit, it is a position without much substance, created largely for the purpose of giving a party loyalist a seat around the government table. When asked if he would give up his ministerial post if appointed Agency chairman, Stern said: Probably.

Should he assume the position, he added, his goal would be to make sure that every Jew living in the Diaspora would want to say that he or she is proud of being Jewish, regardless of the reason.

Polar opposite

Dayan is, in many ways, his polar opposite. A resident of the West Bank settlement of Maaleh Shomron, he used to lead the Yesha Council, the lobbying organization of the settler movement. He was eventually succeeded in that position by Israels newly installed prime minister, and he and Bennett were known to have had ups and downs in their relationship, as Dayan admits. Unlike Bennett and Stern, Dayan, 65, does not wear a kippa and is a proud secularist.

Born in Argentina, he was a member of Likud for many years. Indeed, it was thanks to the close ties he once enjoyed with Netanyahu that he was appointed Israels consul general in New York in 2015. He had originally been destined for Brasilia, but the Brazilian government at the time vetoed his appointment on account of his affiliation with the settler enterprise.

Many wondered how a right-wing ideologue like Dayan would fare in one of the most progressive cities in the world, but he proved to be a surprising success as a diplomat.

His decision to focus on outreach to the non-Orthodox Jewish denominations, as well as to the Black and Latino communities, was undoubtedly key to his popularity and explains how he was able to erode some of the initial resistance to his appointment.

Dayan publicly split with Netanyahu before Israels most recent election in March, when he quit Likud and joined the new right-wing, anti-Netanyahu New Hope party set up by Gideon Saar (now part of the governing coalition). The party didnt capture enough votes, however, for Dayan to win a seat in the Knesset.

I believe I have an advantage in that I know American Jews quite intimately by now, Dayan told Haaretz. At the same time, Im also a proud Latino Jew and thats a community that often feels neglected.

If he lands the position, Dayan said, he would make his top objective educating Israelis about their responsibility toward Diaspora Jews, and vice versa. Israel must see itself as responsible not only for its own citizens, but also for the continued flourishing of Jewish life in the Diaspora, while Diaspora Jews need to understand that without a strong bond to Israel, their Judaism is unsustainable, he said.

While Stern may have the endorsement of Israeli government leaders, Dayan is said to have the support of many key members of the selection committee, who consider his diplomatic experience and his ties to the non-Orthodox movements an advantage.

Other contenders

Danny Danon, Israels former ambassador to the United Nations and a former Likud minister, is also reportedly interested in the job. However, he doesnt stand much of a chance, according to well-placed sources, because of opposition from the Reform and Conservative movements, which have representatives on the selection committee.

Steinitz, who was Netanyahus candidate in the last round, is also said to be interested in the job, as is former Diaspora Affairs Minister Omer Yankelevich, who was also the first ultra-Orthodox woman to serve in the Israeli cabinet. However, both her Haredi affiliation and her increasingly warm embrace of the settler movement could prove to be too many strikes against her.

No date has yet been set for the selection committee to convene and choose a candidate, who will then have to be approved by the Agencys board of governors. The selection committee, however, doesnt appear to be in any rush to make a final decision and will probably wait to see if Israels fragile new government actually survives its first few months in office.

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Posted By admin on June 16, 2021

SPRINGFIELD An East Longmeadow man was convicted of two federal criminal counts linked to an attempted arson of a Jewish elder care complex in 2020.

John Rathbun began standing trial for the second time in U.S. District Court last week. He was convicted of transporting an explosive and attempting to destroy property using fire.

Earlier this year, a jury deadlocked and Judge Mark Mastroianni was forced to declare a mistrial.

Prosecutors argued Rathbun, 38, filled a plastic container with gas, stuffed a Christian church pamphlet in its spout and lit it on fire at the base of the Jewish Geriatric Services campus in Longmeadow. The wick flared out before the device could cause any damage, police said.

Federal investigators first theory was that Rathbun was a white supremacist, but that fizzled when there was no direct evidence to link him to white supremacy websites. Prosecutors then argued Rathbun was an unemployed drug addict in a spiral who acted out against the Jewish facility.

He faces at least a five-year mandatory minimum prison sentence at a hearing Nov. 12. While Rathbun had been living at a halfway house offering substance abuse treatment, he was remanded back to prison after his conviction.

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John Rathbun of East Longmeadow convicted of attempting to burn Jewish elder care campus after 2nd trial - MassLive.com

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Posted By admin on June 16, 2021

Nazi collaborator, the worlds biggest drug dealer, a traitor to the United States, one of the most evil people in the world, even Satans seed. To judge by some of the epithets hurled at him over the years, Jewish-American billionaire George Soros may certainly be one of the most hated people in the world.

Large swaths of Europe and America view him as evil incarnate, sure that hes putting entire countries at risk. They hold him responsible for the financial collapse of a long list of countries including Thailand, Malasia, Indonesia, Japan and Russia.

A few years ago, the government of Hungary, his country of birth, even launched an anti-immigration campaign featuring posters of Soros and the slogan Dont let Soros have the last laugh. The photo of the billionaire that was plastered all over the country showed a smile you wouldnt want to bump into in a dark alley.

A collage of hatred fills the first minutes of the documentary Soros, along with similar cartoons and memes such as ones depicting Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama as puppets controlled by the billionaire, whos shown in a Nazi uniform and giving the Nazi salute. Or hes wearing a glove like the Marvel villain Thanos, sowing death and destruction all over the world.

These call to mind a cartoon that doesnt appear in the film one that was once shared by Benjamin Netanyahus son Yair depicting Soros as pulling the strings behind people like Ehud Barak, former Barak aide Eldad Yaniv and Meni Naftali, a former caretaker of the prime ministers residence who claimed abuse by Sara Netanyahu. (Yair threw in an alien for good measure.)

So what is it about Soros whose fortune was recently estimated by Forbes at $8.6 billion that stirs such burning, continent-hopping hatred and gets people to concoct so many vicious conspiracy theories about him? In polarized Israel, some might offer a succinct answer: Hes a leftist. But in the documentary Soros, available on Yes Docu VOD, director Jesse Dylan seeks explanations that are a little more complex and convincing.

The billions that Soros, 91, still has are just a small part of the fortune he has amassed over the decades through his international investments and foreign-currency trading. Forbes calls Soros the most generous philanthropist of all the billionaires who donate to charity: He has given away 64 percent of his original fortune, distributing more than $15 billion to liberal organizations and initiatives largely identified with the left. He does this via the Open Society Foundations formerly called the Open Society Institute that he founded to promote peace, education, public health and an independent media.

Jesse Dylan, the eldest son of Bob Dylan and his ex-wife Sara Lownds (yes, Sara from the song of the same name), was born in New York in 1966. He began his career as a director of music videos for stars like Tom Waits and Lenny Kravitz, and went on to direct the comedies American Wedding (a sequel to American Pie) and Kicking & Screaming with Will Ferrell.

In Soros, the filmmakers first full-length documentary, Dylan offers several possible explanations for the intense hatred of the billionaire around the world. Most of these are provided by people who seem to hold views in line with those of Soros.

But one of the more cogent explanations in the film actually comes from Fox News Tucker Carlson, who has harshly attacked Soros and his work many times. In the documentary, Carlson says he doesnt think people understand the scale of Soros influence. Never has there been so much money in a system whose goal is to create a new order in society money that isnt subject to any political system, Carlson says.

True, when you think of billionaires who donate heaps of money, most dont invest in causes linked to politics. Its a lot simpler to help the poor or sick, to invest in medical research or battle global warming.

Soros, however, hopes to change the political reality in various parts of the world. His first major donations were to help students in South Africa during apartheid; he then made large donations to pro-democracy forces when Eastern Europe was still under Soviet rule. (One interviewee in the film says that except for John Paul II, Lech Walesa and Mikhail Gorbachev, Soros played the main role in toppling communism.)

Soros has also invested a fortune in implementing the peace agreement in Bosnia, and helped Aung San Suu Kyi come to power in Myanmar. He has also gotten involved in other controversial issues such as abortion, LGBT rights, drugs and immigration with the name Soros becoming synonymous with liberal values.

Those slings and arrows hurt

Its hard for us now to understand what it was like to live through the Holocaust. Then the Soviets stayed in postwar Hungary with their own ideas about how were all supposed to live. When you consider this, you can understand the deep impression made on the young Soros.

Many of the people interviewed in the documentary say that Soros Jewishness helps fuel the fear and loathing that many people feel about him in countries where he donates.

I dont know whether people put it together quite as antisemitism, although, you know, being Jewish, you get a bad rap around the world, right? Dylan told Haaretz in a Zoom interview.

And I think that you need something to fight against, you need an enemy, if youre an autocrat ... you need something to fight against. And it just happens to be that hes an easy target, hes Jewish, hes wealthy, hes secretive, he doesnt do a lot of press. Hes an easy target. And I think that those kinds of arrows are painful when youre just trying to help people, thats a painful thing.

Soros isnt keen to be interviewed or publicize what hes doing; he usually prefers to work quietly behind the scenes understandable when youre a hate magnet. But Dylan managed to convince him to talk on camera about his personal history and what motivates him, his urge to change the world and his methods for coping with a relentless tide of animosity.

Dylan says he met Soros when he was making films for the Open Society Institute and got to interview the billionaire several times then.

When I first met him in Hungary, and then, as I sort of got to know him, what he was talking about was very different than the public perception of him. And so, gradually, I just thought, maybe we should make a movie of it to try and get across what hes been trying to do, Dylan says.

And so then I asked him permission to do it. And then it took a few years to get permission, but eventually he let me do it.

Why was it so hard for him to decide? And what finally convinced him to go ahead with it?

Im just speculating, theres so much negative. Hes the boogeyman in the press. So I think he wanted to have something that maybe was a little more fair to his point of view out there.

Powerful people often want to control a movie being made about themselves. Did Soros impose any conditions on you?

There were no conditions. Just, you know, finding availability to talk about things. Then he didnt see the movie until before he went to the festival .... So I think it was kind of just, once he decided, I think he just let go of it.

Why did you want to make this film? What was it about Soros that you wanted to understand?

You know, not so much about him, but maybe more about how he thought about the world. Ive done a lot of work for foundations around the world, and most of the people, from the philanthropic point of view, they knew what they wanted to do, they thought they had a better idea than everybody else. And so they would just do it and were very focused on sort of binary results, like it was either a good thing or a bad thing, according to them.

What I found fascinating about George was that he didnt have any of that. He just wanted it to get better. And he didnt necessarily know what better even meant. So what he would do is sit with people in a local area. And then they would say, over time, Well, this is what we think makes it better. Then he would support those people. And I thought that was very unusual. I mean, I hadnt met anybody like that before.

So thats what attracted me to trying to work with him more, and ... I was wondering why he was so hated. Because its like, all hes really saying is, Let the smaller group in society express their views. Hes not even saying he necessarily agrees with the views, he was just saying, You have to be able to say it. And I thought that that was very interesting.

Fantasies about saving the world

Soros was born in 1930 to a secular Jewish family in Budapest. In 1944, under the Nazi occupation, he was forced to carry out tasks for the local Judenrat, a council of Jewish notables who served as an intermediary with the Nazis, until his father could obtain documents showing the family to be Christian. After the war, he remained in Hungary, now under Soviet occupation, until he emigrated to England at 17, where he earned two degrees in philosophy and was deeply influenced by the philosopher Karl Popper and his book The Open Society and its Enemies.

In the film, Soros explains that after he read Poppers book, he noticed the similarities between the Nazi and Soviet regimes; both believed they possessed the ultimate truth that had to be forced on the people. Popper proposed an alternative that won over the young Hungarian immigrant: an open society recognizing that no one has sole custody of the truth; others views must be respected and people must learn to live together.

When he was 26, Soros moved to New York, where he worked in investment firms and made his fortune in foreign-currency trading and later in international investments. He became famous as the man who broke the Bank of England during the 1992 British currency crisis, he sold billions of pounds in anticipation of a devaluation. When that happened, he pocketed a billion-dollar profit.

Financial markets always move forward, and the same is true of history, Soros says in the film. He says that when he began his philanthropic activity, he had childish fantasies of saving the world, messianic fantasies in a sense, and that he succeeded more than others in realizing those fantasies.

People associate Soros with the left and liberal values. Would the hatred of him be the same if he supported values associated with the right?

The issue with very, very wealthy people on the right or the left is whether their vote is more than our votes .... But at the end of the day, Im not sure that any of us are comfortable with anybody having one more vote than us. And thats ultimately the challenge everywhere, whether its Israel or America: We want all of our votes to count exactly the same.

So, you know, theres a tension ... for philanthropy. In general, most of it fails ... only a very small amount actually succeeds, because these are very difficult things to do .... Bill Gates, you know, was interested in eradicating malaria .... But thats a different thing than, Well, we just want to make it better so that all people can express themselves in the town square. And, being Jewish, obviously, I think thats very important, because there was a period of time where we werent able to express ourselves in the town square.

Soros is an object of hatred in many parts of the world, but the interviewees in your documentary mostly support him. Many of them are people who worked for or currently work for organizations he supports and speak positively of him. Why did you choose to feature them?

I worked with a lot of those people, and ... those kinds of people are concerned with how to make the world a better place. Now, I think that most efforts fail, I think George would say most of his own efforts have failed; look at the movie .... So I want to be part of the world becoming a better place in some way ... I wanted to try and get that ideology across, like, how do people think about change?

And if a lot of people think about it, how do we actually, do it? So I felt like that was where I wanted to focus. Now, you know, Tucker Carlson was nice enough to be in the movie. And he represents the other side: very intelligent guys talking about it from a different, totally different point of view.

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is barely mentioned in the film. While its true that Soros doesnt invest large sums in Israel, its a little surprising considering his Judaism, the fact that the Holocaust was such a formative experience for him, and the interest he showed in South Africa during apartheid.

I dont know his feelings on that; we didnt go to Israel together. Hes Eastern European, so I think that he spends a lot of time in the Eastern European countries .... Hes not focused on anything military, his focus would just be on, like, getting newspapers to people and ... humanitarian aid.

Two years ago, it was reported that Benjamin Netanyahu introduced the campaign managers Arthur Finkelstein and George Birnbaum to far-right Hungarian leader Viktor Orban, and that they were the ones who came up with the campaign denigrating the Jewish billionaire.

I dont understand why we would target that, why we would help Victor Orban at all, but thats just me speaking. Its not George. Hungarys taking a hard turn to the right, and it doesnt seem like its going to be good for anybody in Hungary. I think the reason that those things can happen is because people forget how difficult it was to open those borders. So its very easy to close them. But it may be very many years before were able to open them back up again.

Soros is 91. Did you ask him what will happen after he dies?

I did talk to him a little bit about that. Obviously, its a sensitive subject. I think that when I started working with him years ago, he thought that he would just spend all the money and be done with it. And then in recent times, I think theyve made a decision that theyre going to keep the foundation open, and so you put a bunch more money in there, to be able to do that.

Its very difficult for an institution to go on beyond the founder, because hes able to do sort of unusual things. And once rigid thinking comes in, it becomes a little bit different. But I think its important for there to be a place like that around that helps us.

Theres an upsetting moment in the film where you see Soros mother telling how, when the war was over and the Soviets ruled Hungary, two Soviet soldiers raped her in the street. Why was it important for you to include this in the film?

I think that all of that hatred affected him, and its very hard now for any of us to understand what living through the Holocaust really meant .... And then youre talking about Soviets, youre talking about a few years later ....

And I think that seeing that, and seeing the violence and the hatred that was around then deeply affected him, so much so that when he sees these other groups that are marginalized, his first instinct is to go in there and say, Well, how can I help express your views so that that might not happen again?

You have access to another man who is famous, mysterious and Jewish your father. Did you ever think of making a movie about him?

Well, I think Martin Scorsese did a pretty good job of that. I dont need to do that one; I dont think I could do that. Actually, it would be very difficult .... My role is as a son, you know, to a great father, not as a biographer trying to tell the story. And you know, hes so in control of his own story, I think its best left to him.

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'George Soros was an easy target: hes Jewish, wealthy and secretive' - Haaretz

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Posted By admin on June 16, 2021

(JTA) Three Jewish nonprofit organizations will receive a slice of the latest $2.74 billion in grants handed out by MacKenzie Scott, philanthropist and former wife of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos.

Scott and her husband Dan Jewett announced Tuesday that they were distributing new funds to 286 different organizations, bringingScotts total charitable giving since July 2020 to $8.5 billion.

The latest grants include Scotts first to Jewish groups.The three Jewish grantees are Maryland-based HIAS, which advocates for and gives aid to immigrants and refugees; Repair the World, a community service and social justice organization based in New York; and Afrika Tikkun, an aid organization founded by the chief rabbi of South Africa after the end of apartheid there.

Because community-centered service is such a powerful catalyst and multiplier, we spent the first quarter of 2021 identifying and evaluating equity-oriented non-profit teams working in areas that have been neglected, Scott said in her announcement about the grants. We chose to make relatively large gifts to the [organizations], both to enable their work, and as a signal of trust and encouragement, to them and to others.

Scott didnt spell out why she gave any particular group or how much each had received.

Repair the World released a statement announcing a $7 million unrestricted gift from Scott that will help get more young people involved in community service and advocacy on humanitarian and civic issues.

Mackenzie Scott and Dan Jewetts generosity and vision validates the investments of Repairs generous funders, and their gift is a clear challenge and invitation to do even more: more service, more partnerships, and more investments to elevate and expand service in American Jewish life, said Cindy Greenberg, president and CEO of Repair the World.

Meanwhile, HIAS announced it had received a transformational grant from Scott.

HIAS has been broadening our programmatic, advocacy and geographic reach to help people find safety, welcome and opportunity wherever they are, said Mark Hetfield, president and CEO of HIAS. With this investment, HIAS will accelerate our work to build the platform we need to respond to refugee emergencies wherever they arise and whenever we can help.

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Jewish groups in the US and South Africa among recipients of MacKenzie Scott's latest $2.74B in grants - Cleveland Jewish News

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Posted By admin on June 16, 2021

I'm an Israeli-American lawyer, Jewish, married to a Palestinian resident of Ramallah, and author of the book, Maqluba Upside-Down Love (Hebrew), which describes how we met and fell in love. This blog is about raising our two children, 7-year-old Forat and 3-year-old Adam, in the West Bank and more recently in the U.S., where were spending a sabbatical year. We are trying to lead ordinary lives in an extraordinary and unforgiving reality, one that I will share with you. I have changed peoples names to protect their privacy. "Umm Forat" means "Mother of Forat" in Arabic. I invite you to visit my website: http://www.ummforat.com.

I began publishing this column in December 2019, seven years after I moved to the Ramallah area to live with my partner. As a Jewish woman married to a Palestinian, I live in two worlds, and I wanted to write about life on the other side of the separation barrier, from the point of view of a mixed family.

I wrote about how people in Ramallah respond when they hear me speaking Hebrew in the supermarket, at a childs birthday party and also at home, when I lose patience and yell at my kids. I wrote about encounters with Israeli soldiers on morning runs with my toddler in the stroller, while trying to cross a flying checkpoint in order to get home and as part of my partners efforts to travel abroad and then come home. I wrote about our attempts to raise our children to oppose restrictive social norms such as disapproval of women wearing bathing suits or boys who like dresses. I also wrote about the closure of the Gaza Strip, where my in-laws live, which makes visiting a family member or getting to a hospital nearly impossible.

I chose the pen name Umm Forat, meaning Forats mother, to maintain privacy. I had professional and security reasons to remain anonymous but also personal and family reasons: I try to write about my personal life directly and honestly, and the pen name provided a measure of protection. More importantly, the pen name protected my family, who didnt ask for me to write about them in a newspaper.

Despite all that, I have now published a book, Maqluba - Upside-Down Love (Hebrew, Asia Publishing), under my own name: Sari Bashi.

So its nice to meet you. Im a 45-year-old lawyer, human rights activist and runner, raising two wonderful children, Forat, 7, and Adam, 3, in the Ramallah area.

I began writing Maqluba, which means upside-down in Arabic, 11 years ago. I wrote it out of a sense of wonder at the world my relationship with Osama exposed me to. I wrote it during difficult periods, when Osama and I struggled with external pressures military prohibitions, travel restrictions and also the overwhelming, unwanted but also unavoidable difference in the power dynamic between us, because I belong to the occupying society, and Osama belongs to the occupied society. Sometimes I wrote in order to overcome the interpersonal, ordinary challenges that we, like every couple, experienced. There were times when I wrote the book to heal after a break-up with Osama or in order to find my way back to him.

The book is written in two voices, Osamas and mine. It describes our attempts to allow Osama to remain in his house in Ramallah, despite opposition from the Israeli military authorities, and also the journey our connection took, from a lawyer-client relationship to a love relationship. We couldnt find room for our love in Israel or in Palestine, so we built a space within the non-space, where the two of us could meet as human beings, as a woman and a man, as Sari and Osama.

Its easier for me to reveal my identity now, while we are on a sabbatical year in the United States, far from a place where the fact that Im Israeli and Osama is Palestinian dictates whether hell join the children and me for a visit to the sea or a family dinner. But Im also grateful for the opportunity to continue this dialogue with Haaretz readers openly, without anonymity. Throughout the life of my column, I have felt gratitude to readers who responded, including those who politely and respectfully disagreed with what I wrote.

Ill continue writing here under the pen name, but now without hiding behind it. Although the column is meant to be about raising our kids in Israel-Palestine, Ill write occasionally from my current, temporary place of residence, in green and pretty Raleigh, North Carolina.

And Ill continue to thank you for reading it.

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